Education Commons^™

A Menace To Math: When Numbers Attack And Anxiety Strikes Back, Celycia Rogers

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

In this Capstone Project, the researcher examined educators' perspectives on math anxiety and investigated their personal experiences with math to identify effective approaches for reducing math anxiety. Addressing math anxiety is essential to reduce the tension and fear individuals experience in math-related situations due to environmental factors and teaching methods. The primary stakeholder perspective obtained for this study was that of educators, as they have the most significant influence on student's math comprehension and emotional associations with the subject. Following interviews with participating educators and a review of relevant literature, three emergent themes were identified: making math fun, phasing out …

Three Key Principles For Improving Discussion-Based Learning In College Classrooms, Christopher E. Garrett

Journal on Empowering Teaching Excellence

Discussion-Based Learning (DBL) can be an effective pedagogical tool for student engagement and developing higher-order thinking skills. However, DBL can be a challenging endeavor for college teachers for various reasons. The purposes of this article are to identify those challenges, present three key principles, and share several practical ideas that will help improve discussions in college classrooms.

A Look Into Mindset, Motivation, And Self- Regulation: How To Foster Motivation And The Growth Mindset In The Classroom, Jennifer Slack

Award Winners

People are naturally curious beings, and the desire to learn is a natural and innate part of human nature. So why is it that by the time students reach their secondary education, their motivation is at an all time low? As students’ motivation is directly linked to their success and well-being, this problem is troubling. Many researchers have sought to find the cause of this shift, and what they have found is that although there cannot merely be a single determining factor to account for this shift, the vast majority of our schools and classrooms are promoting strategies, systems, and …

Technology And Teacher Preparation In Exemplary Institutions: 1994 To 2003, Mark J. Hofer

Mark Hofer

In a 1994 study commissioned by the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment, Mergendoller, Johnston, Rockman, & Willis (1994) examined four exemplary institutions to identify their approaches to integrating technology into teacher education. A decade later, the field would benefit from a comparison of current approaches of infusing technology into teacher education to the 1994 findings. This study examines the approaches of the first seven teacher education programs to receive the ISTE NETS Distinguished Achievement Award. Current approaches to the process are outlined, including the identification of the key factors impacting their implementation. A comparison of the 1994 and the present …

Meeting The Iste Challenge In The Field: An Overview Of The First Six Distinguished Achievement Award Winning Programs, Terri Teal Bucci, Anthony Petrosino, Randy Bell, Susan Cherup, Ann Cunningham, Sandi Cohen, Gail Dickinson, Jeremy Ervin, Mark J. Hofer, Keith Wetzel

Mark Hofer

The 2002 National Educational Technology Standards (NETS) Distinguished Achievement Awards, sponsored by the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE), were awarded to six teacher education programs across the United States. The awards recognize institutions that exemplify successful integration of the National Educational Technology Standards for Teachers (NETS[solid dot]T) into teacher education programs. Institutions across the country completed an extensive application process to be selected one of the first six recipients of the ISTE Distinguished Achievement award. This process included online documentation that demonstrated the program's implementation of the NETS[solid dot]T models and practices. This article provides a means of …

Teaching With A Full Deck: Card Sorts, Lindsey Herlehy

Publications & Research

Card sorts tend to make students do the “thing” we value most: talk. Beyond making matches, card sorts provide opportunities for students to classify, rank, sequence, and mind map while setting a natural context for argumentation and use of the claim-evidence-reasoning framework. Join me for a series of card sorts to explore how this easy-to-prep tool will encourage your students to reason and think critically. Math and science resources will be shared.

Resources available below for download include all cards used in the training.

Developing A Professional Vision: The Role Of Faculty Learning Labs As A Peer-Mentoring Model, Mary A. Bair, Nancy Defrance, Nagnon Diarrassouba, Terry Stockton

Peer Reviewed Articles

This paper describes a faculty development project in which four teacher educators, who were part of a larger Faculty Learning Community, used an innovative model called the Faculty Learning Lab to support each other in critical reflections about their teaching. Within the learning lab, which was guided by Knowles’ adult learning theory, each faculty member invited colleagues to observe a lesson, priming their observations with a description of desired learning objectives. Learning lab members shared their noticings regarding evidence of student learning and their hypotheses about the interaction of factors that may have affected the learning. Exploratory analyses indicate that …

Strongly And Weakly Directed Approaches To Teaching Multiple Representation Use In Physics, Patrick B. Kohl, David Rosengrant, Noah D. Finkelstein

David Rosengrant

Good use of multiple representations is considered key to learning physics, and so there is considerable motivation both to learn how students use multiple representations when solving problems and to learn how best to teach problem solving using multiple representations. In this study of two large-lecture algebra-based physics courses at the University of Colorado (CU) and Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, we address both issues. Students in each of the two courses solved five common electrostatics problems of varying difficulty, and we examine their solutions to clarify the relationship between multiple representation use and performance on problems involving …

Alec 405: Method Of Instruction For Secondary Career And Technical Education—A Peer Review Of Teaching Project Benchmark Portfolio, Nathan W. Conner

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

The objective of this portfolio is to showcase and provide evidence of how students become able to grow and develop in the area of lesson plan development over the course of the semester. This portfolio will also serve to document the importance of providing classroom learning activities that allow students the opportunity to practice and apply the skills that they obtain from new content knowledge. This portfolio will show evidence of the importance that I put on my personal growth and reflection in order to continually improve my teaching and provide the best learning opportunities possible. The course I selected …

Addressing Laterality To Prevent Injury In Dance Education: Teaching Methods To Compensate For The Right Bias And Asymmetry, Olivia M. Alsamadi

Undergraduate Research Posters

Despite the vast knowledge available about proper alignment and safe dance training, the growing demands for university dancers have plagued them with increasing rates of overuse injuries stemming from an imbalance in their practice often influenced by their professors. The purpose of this review is to study teaching methods in dance education and the right bias in university dance classes to learn how unbalanced teaching methods and dancers’ asymmetric physicalities cause injuries. This research will help professors understand how to effectively communicate with their students to promote safe, injury preventing practice. The research explores the various roles present in the …

Problem-Based Learning And Self-Efficacy: How A Capstone Course Prepares Students For A Profession, Joanna C. Dunlap

Joanna Dunlap

Problem-based learning (PBL) is apprenticeship for real-life problem solving, helping students acquire the knowledge and skills required in the workplace. Although the acquisition of knowledge and skills makes it possible for performance to occur, without self-efficacy the performance may not even be attempted. I examined how student self-efficacy, as it relates to being software development professionals, changed while involved in a PBL environment. Thirty-one undergraduate university computer science students completed a 16-week capstone course in software engineering during their final semester prior to graduation. Specific instructional strategies used in PBL--namely the use of authentic problems of practice, collaboration, and reflection--are …

“Let Me Gather Spring Flowers For A Wreath”: Writing About Historical Trauma For Young People In A Wreath For Emmett Till, Kelly Wissman

Literacy Teaching & Learning Faculty Scholarship

Marilyn Nelson's book, "A Wreath for Emmett Till", (2005) was named a 2006 Coretta Scott King Honor Book and given the 2006 Printz Honor Award. "A Wreath for Emmett Till" tells the story of a 14-year-old African American boy who was lynched in 1955. Within 15 sonnets accompanied by illustrations by Philippe Lardy, Nelson not only provides an account of Till's experience but also describes the wreath of flowers that she would create to honor him. In this article, Kelly Wissman explores how Nelson provides guidance to young readers in ways that make reading this text "bearable." Wissman first provides …

Reflective Teaching Practices: Looking Beneath The Surface And Emergent Cyclical Experiential Learning Processes And Outcomes, Mazie E. Black

MA TESOL Collection

In this professional paper, I examined the kinds of processes I experienced for English language acquisition (ELA) in practice. This journey is about my transition from a generalist to a TESOL specialist. One of my most successful lessons was not in English, but a science lesson to students who were majority users of English as a second or third language. It was about the use of reflective and refractive telescopes. My approaches were very student centered and project based. They worked in groups, chose which type of telescope to make, kept journals with notes, drawings and key vocabulary, made inferences, …

A National Survey Of Instructional Strategies Used To Teach Information Systems Courses: An Exploratory Investigation, Yenni Merlin Djajalaksana

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Many universities and colleges have placed increased emphasis on teaching excellence in higher education. Efforts to promote teaching excellence vary from the development of alternative new pedagogies as well as research exploring strategies to improve existing teaching practices. Logically, different disciplines employ different instructional strategies to prepare their graduates with specific skills, knowledge, and attitudes. This study examined the instructional strategies used most frequently in the information systems discipline and was inspired by Shulman's (2005) concept of signature pedagogies - the unique but pervasive ways of teaching within a discipline or profession.

This dissertation reports a national survey of instructional …

Effective Vocabulary Teaching Strategies For The English For Academic Purposes Esl Classroom, Joseph Mukoroli

MA TESOL Collection

Vocabulary learning is an important and indispensable part of any language learning process. The author of this thesis focuses on effective vocabulary teaching strategies in the English for Academic Purposes ESL classroom. Drawing on findings obtained from observing three English for Academic Purposes ESL classrooms across the U.S.A, several current databases and his personal experience as a teacher and learner, the author discusses various effective vocabulary teaching strategies in the English for Academic Purposes classroom which could greatly assist English language learners in their journey of language acquisition and therefore expedite the language learning process.

Applying Toulmin: Teaching Logical Reasoning And Argumentative Writing, Lesley A. Rex, Ebony Elizabeth Thomas, Steven Engel

Teacher Education Faculty Publications

To learn to write well-reasoned persuasive arguments, students need in situ help thinking through the complexity and complications of an issue, making inferences based on evidence, and hierarchically grouping and logically sequencing ideas. They rely on teachers to make this happen. In this article, the authors explain the framework they used and describe how they taught reasoning to students at an alternative high school, where they recorded what happened.

Teachers’ Perceptions Of Strategy Based Reading Instruction For Reading Comprehension, Katherine D. Gibson

Dissertations, Masters Theses, Capstones, and Culminating Projects

Strategy based reading instruction helps teachers differentiate the teaching of reading. It also supports many types of readers by explicitly teaching and modeling reading comprehension strategies. The purpose of this study is to explore the effectiveness of strategy based reading instruction for improving student reading comprehension. Additionally, it examines teachers' perceptions of the effectiveness of this approach. The review of the literature supports the idea that strategy based reading instruction is an effective way to improve reading comprehension. Teachers in kindergarten through eighth grade were surveyed on their perceptions of strategy based reading instruction's effectiveness for improving reading comprehension. Results …

Blended-Art At The Kindergarten Level, Jessica E. Sill

Dissertations, Masters Theses, Capstones, and Culminating Projects

A foundational research assumption for this project is that the combination of open-ended-art and structured-art will enhance the development of the kindergartener. In today's standards driven classroom environment, art is often overlooked in place of text based curriculum. The idea of this project is to blend two approaches to teaching art and intertwine this approach into the rigorous daily curriculum. The deficits in each approach will be covered by the other, thereby providing opportunity for all students to reap the benefits. The purpose of this endeavor is to determine the positive and negative effects of blended-art, a combination of open-ended-art …

A Story Well Told: Rich Narrative Engages California Fifth Grade Students In American History, Julie Alice Huson

Dissertations, Masters Theses, Capstones, and Culminating Projects

The educational publisher Pearson/Scott-Foresman in 2006 introduced curriculum to address California History/Social Studies standards. Fifth grade students have difficulty comprehending non-fiction text that is informative enough to have historical accuracy. The publisher promotes a program that features a standard in every lesson, and promises no extraneous content. An examination is conducted as to how this program approaches the required California History/Social Studies elements of providing "A Story Well Told" which should include, according to specifications by the California State Department of Education, "forceful personalities, controversies, issues of the time, and primary sources."(CDE, 2003) Literature on the topic of history education …

Strongly And Weakly Directed Approaches To Teaching Multiple Representation Use In Physics, Patrick B. Kohl, David Rosengrant, Noah D. Finkelstein

Faculty and Research Publications

Good use of multiple representations is considered key to learning physics, and so there is considerable motivation both to learn how students use multiple representations when solving problems and to learn how best to teach problem solving using multiple representations. In this study of two large-lecture algebra-based physics courses at the University of Colorado (CU) and Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, we address both issues. Students in each of the two courses solved five common electrostatics problems of varying difficulty, and we examine their solutions to clarify the relationship between multiple representation use and performance on problems involving …

Lesson Study Meets Siop: Linking Two Successful Professional Development Models, Andrea Honigsfeld Ed.D., Audrey Cohan Ed.D.

Faculty Works: EDU (1995-2023)

In response to recently identified research priorities by TESOL (Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages) and AERA, the objective of this documentary account is to describe and evaluate a professional development project for in-service teachers working with diverse English Language Learners (ELLs). The purpose of our project was to merge two distinct professional development models for teachers who educate ELLs without prior training or certification. The “lesson study” approach, which began in Japan as a professional development movement was adapted and combined with the SIOP (Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol) Model. Findings from a combination of quantitative and qualitative …

Full- Time, In-Class, Face- To- Face Courses...Why (Then) Online Discussion?, Maha Bali Phd, Adham Ramadan, Nagla Rizk

Faculty Journal Articles

Most of the literature advocating online discussions cite the main advantage as encouraging interaction for students who either see each other rarely (e.g. in mostly distance learning courses) or have insufficient time to interact in class (e.g. in large lecture halls). However, at AUC, some faculty are using online discussions, despite the relatively small class size, and the regular meetings every week. In this paper we explore two different cases of using online discussion at AUC across several semesters: one for an introductory environmental science course and one for an advanced economics course. The instructors outline their reasons for using …

Standards, Firewalls, And General Classroom Mayhem: Implementing Student-Centered Technology Projects In The Elementary Classroom, Mark J. Hofer, Kathleen Owings Swan

Articles

Educators are simultaneously bombarded with both calls to integrate technology in meaningful ways into their teaching and to promote more student-centered activities which combine both content learning and higher-order thinking. This is no small task given the range of student abilities and interests, the increasing emphasis on state standards and testing, and the persistent challenges regarding reliability and ubiquitous access to the necessary technologies in the classroom. In this study, the authors attempt to work towards a research-based model to connect student-centered technology pedagogy that teachers can effectively replicate in the classroom. They came to this project as educational technologists …

Technology And Teacher Preparation In Exemplary Institutions: 1994 To 2003, Mark J. Hofer

Articles

In a 1994 study commissioned by the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment, Mergendoller, Johnston, Rockman, & Willis (1994) examined four exemplary institutions to identify their approaches to integrating technology into teacher education. A decade later, the field would benefit from a comparison of current approaches of infusing technology into teacher education to the 1994 findings. This study examines the approaches of the first seven teacher education programs to receive the ISTE NETS Distinguished Achievement Award. Current approaches to the process are outlined, including the identification of the key factors impacting their implementation. A comparison of the 1994 and the present …

Meeting The Iste Challenge In The Field: An Overview Of The First Six Distinguished Achievement Award Winning Programs, Terri Teal Bucci, Anthony Petrosino, Randy Bell, Susan Cherup, Ann Cunningham, Sandi Cohen, Gail Dickinson, Jeremy Ervin, Mark J. Hofer, Keith Wetzel

Articles

The 2002 National Educational Technology Standards (NETS) Distinguished Achievement Awards, sponsored by the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE), were awarded to six teacher education programs across the United States. The awards recognize institutions that exemplify successful integration of the National Educational Technology Standards for Teachers (NETS[solid dot]T) into teacher education programs. Institutions across the country completed an extensive application process to be selected one of the first six recipients of the ISTE Distinguished Achievement award. This process included online documentation that demonstrated the program's implementation of the NETS[solid dot]T models and practices. This article provides a means of …

'Accustomed To The Light': A Philosophy Of Teaching, David A. King

Faculty and Research Publications

A brief narrative description of the journal article, document, or resource. Describes a philosophy of teaching inspired by a love of the discipline being taught and the desire of the professor to give students something of substance and be fulfilled by their responses.

Praxis: Do I Practice What I Believe? A Course In Research In The Language Classroom For The English Language Teacher Education Program At Universidad Centroamericana, Nicaragua, Sarah Renata Wright

MA TESOL Collection

I have asked myself to describe my teaching beliefs and analyze my teaching practice in order to see if the two are congruent and if in fact I do have a teaching praxis. This is a professional paper about course development based on a classroom research project. First, through a discussion of theories, experiences, and observations I describe my teaching beliefs. Second, I describe the Research in English Language Teaching course that I designed and taught to a group fourth year student teachers at the Universidad Centroamericana in Nicaragua. This description is based on a selection of student writings, lesson …

Connecting With Elementary School Esl Students Through Dialogue Journals, Amelia Myers Collins

MA TESOL Collection

This paper presents my experiences using dialogue journals with English as a Second Language students at Ephesus Road Elementary School in Chapel Hill, NC. The history and background of dialogue journals is discussed, as well as my philosophy of teaching. The practical aspects of using dialogue journals with elementary school non-native English-speaking students and the benefits and difficulties associated with them are described using student material. In addition, the work covers how my experience using dialogue journals differed from my expectations when I began using them. Excerpts of written dialogues between students and teacher are included.

Two-Week Training Course For English Language Teachers In The Ukraine, Maryna Gayduchenko

MA TESOL Collection

This is a two week teacher training course for Ukrainian secondary school EFL teachers. What is innovative about this particular course is that it was designed and written by a non-native EFL teacher and trainer for non-native EFL trainees. The following advantages make its importance particularly relevant: a non-native trainer is a role model for trainees – living proof that it IS possible to master new approaches and techniques; a non-native trainer is intimately acquainted with the challenges trainees and learners face and the strategies for dealing with them. The main objective of the course is to help trainees develop …